Extensive felling and mulching operations are often performed with a heavy-duty brush cutter mounted to the front of a work vehicle. A typical brush cutter includes a brush cutting head provided with an elongate support body that carries about its outer surface a plurality of teeth adapted to cut trees, brush or the like. The cutting teeth are typically fixed to the outer surface of the drum via mounting blocks.
To protect the cutting tooth and its associated mounting assembly, certain brush cutting heads have been provided with protective collars. One such brush cutting head is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,035. This patent discloses a brush cutting head that has a cylindrical support base and a plurality of cutting tooth mounting blocks fastened to the outer surface of the base. The bottom surface of each mounting block is concavely curved to match the radius of the base thereby allowing each mounting block to be welded onto the base with its bottom surface flush with the outer surface of the base. Each mounting block carries a cutting tooth on its front face. To protect the mounting blocks from rocks, each mounting block is provided with a protective collar. Each protective collar is welded to the outer surface of the base and extends radially therefrom, transverse to the longitudinal axis of the base. Each collar terminates circumferentially a short distance from the front face of the mounting block with which it is associated to provide a front clearance space. The opposed end of the collar is welded to the back face of the associated mounting block to strengthen it.
While the protective collars described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,035 afford the cutting tooth assemblies some protection, the cutting teeth remain nonetheless exposed to violent impact with hard objects, like stones, and thus are still vulnerable to damage during brush cutting operations.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0261763 describes a brush cutting head provided with differently configured collars and cutting tooth assemblies. This brush cutting head has a cylindrical support body with a curved outer surface and a plurality of penannular collars. The collars are mounted to the support body at spaced apart locations and extend radially from its curved outer surface. Each collar cooperates with an adjacent collar to define a mounting station between adjacent collars. A plurality of cutting tooth assemblies are carried on the outer surface of the support body. Each cutting tooth assembly has a cutting tooth for placement within a mounting station, and a mounting assembly engageable with the adjacent collars to secure the cutting tooth in the mounting station.
By having the cutting tooth and its associated mounting assembly disposed between adjacent collars, two-fold protection is afforded to the cutting teeth. The collars shield the cutting teeth from rocks and other hard objects and reduce the stresses to which the cutting teeth are subjected during operations by improving the distribution of forces through the mounting assembly.
While the brush cutting head described in United States Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0261763 has proven itself successful on the field and constitutes an improvement over what was previously available on the market, efforts continue to be made to lengthen the service life of the cutting teeth and their mounting assemblies by reducing the incidence of destructive impact with rocks. In light of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to have a brush cutting head with improved means for protecting cutting teeth and their mounting assemblies from violent impact with hard objects. Preferably, such protection means would be relatively easy to fabricate and install and would not add significant weight to the brush cutting head so as to minimize power consumption.